


we were happy, you and i, for the briefest of moments in our insignificant lives

by itsallanoxymoron



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Storybrooke AU, Temporary Amnesia, people on neverland are brought into the first curse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallanoxymoron/pseuds/itsallanoxymoron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt for Anon on tumblr, Darling Pan: Peter and Wendy are in storybrooke for the duration of the curse, and possibly sort of the awkward cute pre-teen couple, and their reactions when the curse breaks and they "wake up"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. hoping this is a dream, we were damned anyways

**Author's Note:**

> i am really tired so sorry for any grammatical/spelling errors

In the world with no happy endings, they call him Colin, for  _young creature_ , and dub her Felicity, because that was one of the virtue names.

In this world, they are young and still can not grow old—but this world is different from Never Neverland; they forgot their other faces and took on only these strange, new-and-yet-not-so names,  _Colin and Felicity_.

And in the world with no happy endings, they fall in love because that is what people do, what they have done already—before, in that other life.

.

They are, fortunately but perhaps unfortunately, too, not together when the curse breaks.

The savior breaks the curse, and purple smoke descends and grants everyone back that gift, that disastrous gift, of memories. People emerge to find those from their old life, that other life, and to tell them,  _Yes, yes I remember you, how ever could I have forgotten?_

The curse breaks and Peter and Wendy remember and they do not, like cruel things, look for one another.

(At first.)

.

_I kissed_  him, thinks Wendy Darling, Felicity.  _He kept me prisoner on an island full of wild boys, and I’ve kissed him._ She hates him, Peter Pan, Colin, isn’t sure how to distinguish the two—one who is cruel, malicious, fickle; the other who is childish, but kind, or kinder. She hates him because she loves him, has loved him—loves him still, even now, even with her memory—loves both of him, every part of him, Never Neverland him and the him here, the him now that is both, kind and cruel, childish and malicious, courteous and fickle, hers and not hers at all.

She looks down, the promise ring glinting like a knife on her hand. ( _I know that they say—people say—that teenage relationships don’t last. But … it seems like we’ve been together forever, like I’ve known you my whole life, and please will you just take this ring and promise to try? To try to last with_   _me?_ ) ( _Yes, yes I will try._ ) It belonged to his mother, he had said. Only the Pan had no mother; there was only him and his island, which seemed to have birthed him, the demonic thing. They did not exist except in relation to each other.

Cautiously, slowly, carefully, Felicity takes the ring off her finger, and flings it far away from here—like it is a curse, like it burns her, like it is such a shameful thing that she cannot bare to look at it for another moment.

.

When magic breathes memory into him, the Pan goes to the forest and seeks solace, because the forest is his mother, and he knows this one in Storybrooke almost as well as he knows the ones in his home.

He scales a tree and sits, and thinks, and plots (but plots little), because he is Peter Pan and that is what he does.

( _I love you. I’m young but I love you, I think._ )

Peter Pan closes his eyes and tries to remember who he used to be, who Wendy used to be to  _him_ , when he was ruler over Lost Boys and over Neverland. He remembers—how his shadow stole away poor Wendy Darling, dragging her and dropping her like a wretched thing it wanted rid of; how he played his games with his brothers, who feared him, but stayed with him all the same; and he remembers, also, how the little English girl awakened something within him, back before, something primal and carnal, how that something caught like a spark which blazed, blazed so brightly within his black heart, and how it whispered,  _You will age. You will no longer be a boy but you will not care, because no one is the same after love as they were before it._

.

"You’ve been avoiding me."

(They do not say it, but still it is said—but they cannot blame the other because they are both at fault, have both been fleeing from the frightening, startling question that needs answering:  _What do we do?_ )

"Hello, Wendy-bird," says Pan-Colin, first, because the girl will not. He does not smile, teeth sharp, waiting to swallow her whole. There is no glint in his eye, like when he is playing a game where the only possible winner is ever him. He does, however, avoid her gaze—suddenly not Pan, who would only stare until she squirmed, and not Colin, either, who looked at her like she was his life, in a muted, boyish sort of way.

She shudders and cannot find the words to speak. (What did he call me, before?  _Wendy-bird, Darling, Wendy, Mother-Wendy, Bird_.) She finds that she does not know whether she should scream at him for calling her such a name, or if she likes it. Wendy-Felicity decides on, “Hello, Peter Pan.”

And there is silence, again, because they do not seem to know what to say, and it seems that perhaps they never will—they boy who knows, knew, how to take your secrets and pull your strings, and the girl who is fierce, was fierce, and timid because Never Neverland made her so, rewrote her marrow and hardened her, so that she would survive, so that she was a wolf-pup and a wolf both.

"So, where do we go from here?"

"I don’t know." 


	2. we are both (what we were then and what we were after, be it for better or for worse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are a mixture of things, of their past selves and their newer selves, and such personalities do not mix well. Wendy supposes they are like fire and gunpowder, and wonders how long it will take before they both explode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continuing on with post-curse!Storybrooke storyline, because so many people requested it.

It's all new—well, not new, exactly, not the type of new that has never been touched or used or broken in; it's the type of new that says,  _Something here is familiar_ , and nags at the brain until you cannot stand it and  _what is so familiar? What?_

Rediscovering each other, that is.

That's the new thing. It is a shiny metal thing, moving, glinting in the sunlight so that it is blinding one moment and ordinary the next.

This Peter, Storybrooke-Peter, smiles at her from up in the trees, teeth wolfish but the eyes—those are like Cursed-Peter, all soft and loving and round-edges—and she doesn't know which is worse, or if the answer is neither, because both his smirk and his eyes threaten, as always, to drown her. His being screams of swallowing her up, consuming her, so that there is nothing left for anyone else, nothing left at all—so that all that remains is Peter Pan.

And this Wendy, Storybrooke-Wendy, is like his shadow—is seperate from him, but knows all his secrets, his moods, his preferences, yet is also so very weak and vulnerable. He thinks he likes Neverland-Wendy best; because she was wicked, and cruel, and frightened, and she was mate to a monster. Cursed-Wendy, Felicity, is the worst: timid and demure and a bore.

Their Storybrooke selves, their cursed selves, are wonderful and also terrible.

And they rediscover this, and sigh.

.

Wendy does not remember Cursed-Felix, not  _really_ —it was as if Colin was a part of some secret club to which girls did not belong, but Felix and the other orphans did. She had assumed that they were kind, and only wanted to do what boys do best: wreck havoc and play pretend.

She meets him in the woods, after the curse, and he caws like a crow. “Wendy Darling!” he barks. “Fancy meeting  _you_ here.”

Wendy jumps, startled, confused. “Um,” it takes her a moment to place him, “Felix?”

“Looking for Pan, are you? Well, you won't find him here. He's on a hunt. No use for  _girls_  right now. You'd break his concentration.”

“Why doesn't he just go to the store if he wants meat?” asks Wendy. “It's only down the road.”

“Oh, you stupid girl. He's not hunting animals, he's hunting  _people_.”

.

Later, when she confronts Pan-Colin, disappointment turns his whole face into something she hasn't seen. He frowns at her. “And here I thought my Wendy was full of sterner stuff.” He looks her up and down. “Since when have you been known to fear the sight of blood, Wendy-Bird? I thought you'd gotten over that particular obstacle.” 

He squeezes her hand, as if to remind her that he wants an answer, and she flinches away from him, withdrawing. “Is that what you're going to do? Kill them?”

Peter doesn't answer, which isn't a surprise. What  _is_  surprising, however, is that the Pan grabs her face  _and kisses her_. It's nothing new, not really, but it's different. Neverland kisses were passionate but quick, and Colin's were long and gentle. This seems to be a combination of both, and it makes her head spin.  _If only he wasn't so horrid_ , thinks Wendy as she pulls away. She doesn't look at him for a while, but when she does, there's a look on his face, as if he's saying,  _Ah, so that's how you get her to shut up._

.

People are disappearing and she doesn't talk to him for a month.

(But, well, resolve only holds so long when it deals with Peter Pan—because if he wants something to happen, it does.)

.

“I've brought you a present, Darling Felicity,” he tells her, holds a hand behind his back. “Our one month free.”

She doesn't understand but then it clicks. Oh. One month free from the curse. One month of remembering. One month of confliction—of loving the Pan and hating him—of searching desperately for her family, of wishing she were  _home_. (But which is home: Never Neverland, or her England?)

Surprise, surprise. He's brought hard liquor.

“Oh, come now,” he says, jovial, “it's not like we haven't drank together before.”

She closes her eyes, remembers being Felicity, remembers Colin opening wine and beer and holding it for her to drink. She remembers the kisses and what came after, and how he always tasted, even if he hadn't taken a sip, bitter like spirits. Presently, he grins at her, eyes bright like a challenge.

Well, she'll never back down from a challenge.

Wendy snatches the drink from him, steels herself, and takes a giant gulp. “Well,” grumbles the Pan, “don't drink the whole damn thing.”

“Shut up,” she bites back, all wolfish-Neverland-Wendy, but hands him the bottle anyways.

And there they sit, in the woods, a boy and a girl, the Pan and Wendy, Colin and Felicity, and their shared drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah idk what's happening here

**Author's Note:**

> it’s got a lot less actually not much of the cute awkward cute pre-teen couple yeah sorry  
> but it’s also longer than i thought it would be so??  
> originally on tumblr


End file.
